This is the United States Champion. He became my first self. Ladies and gentlemen. The following contest is set for one flaw. Introduced first from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, the kita coal.
Now the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. With me today, none other than Roy Jones Esquire. Roy, welcome back to the Man Up Show. No stranger to this show.
Great to be here. I'm curious where you're coming up with Esquire at, though. That's pretty good.
Well, you know, I just view you as part of the royal family. I get it. Yeah, yeah.
Well, we are part of the royal family. Hello? The family. Exactly. That's the whole point right there.
So, I just thought I'd get a chuckle out of you, and I accomplished that by introducing you that way. And when I say you're no stranger, I mean, you've been with us before. Of course, you and I over the years have done a lot over the years together. But before we kind of dive into all of that, man, tell us about your bride, Lisa, and just fill us in real quick on that. That's part of the best.
Update us on the family and how you and the family are doing that. That's part of the whole story there. Come on. My wife, Lisa. Met in junior high school, never dated in junior high or high school.
And I always jokingly say she wouldn't go out with me, but she said I never asked her. I'm not sure what the correct story is on that one. How to take that, right? But we've been married 40 years, believe it or not. Just 40 years.
Congratulations. And have four children: Aaron, Caleb, Alina, and Joshua, and three grandchildren, and one beautiful daughter-in-law, Emily.
Okay.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong. The four children, there's been some. Uh, adoption in there, yeah. Great point. Yeah, the um, our third child, Alina, in the hierarchy of the age, she came to be with us when she was 14, which was in 2012.
And she's now doing PhD work at the university here in NC State. And just amazing stories. PhD work. Yeah, she's uh studying to finish her PhD. She just got her master's last year, and she's in year one of her PhD, starting year two this week.
Well, she's like way way over way over my head already. Like with the master's, she's over my head.
Now you're throwing PhD in there. Wow. Yeah, so she's studying. She's soil science. She's in agriculture.
She's studying soil science, the health of the soil. You know, in today's environment, there's a lot of pesticides, herbicides used for crops, which is stripping of minerals and everything. Yeah, and depletion. You know, if crop rotation is not done properly, the soil will end up having some issues as well. And so there's so she's studying the condition of the soil, how to offset and mitigate some of the issues with it.
So, what prompted? Her to go into that particular field. Did she ask her do you know?
Well, she was a biochemistry major in her undergrad, and she just always had an interest in plants and how they were developing and how they grew and what impact the soil had. And her mom and I both work in the ag industry. You know, we work on ag chemical industry. Is that kind of horticulture? Is that kind of hard?
Kind of, sort of. She has to do a lot of work with plants, but she breaks it down to the micro level. I mean, she's literally looking at scopes on some of the root structures and the uptake of them. She's much smarter than me. We keep going.
She's much smarter than me, I tell you. Her mother and I, when we're listening to her talk, we can comprehend and understand the concept of what she's talking about, but not at the detail. She's explaining it.
So it's like we just give her, and she often says, well, I'm doing this, so I'm getting used to telling other people about that would understand what we do. Right, right, right. Wow. And she's been with us since 2012, which is a great lead-in, if you don't mind. I'll share with you about it.
Heard the story, but we'll tell our audience. Lisa was on a women's thing with her sisters and mom in 2009 up in Crossnoor, North Carolina.
Okay.
And there's a children's home up there.
Well, the children's home has. People that sometimes place for adoption, some that are in temporary custody, so forth, while they get their parents back on the track.
So Lisa comes home after this. Weekend with her parents, with her mom and sisters, says, Hey, we're supposed to adopt a child. And Roy's like, let me hear from God on that one, right? Yeah, pretty much. First, I didn't ask for the God conversation.
I just said, honey, I just got laid off from my job. It was the 0809 crash.
So I said, I just got laid off.
So roll the clock forward three years, 2012, January. I'm sitting in my home office, which you've been to many times when we're at Summerfield. I was down in my office. I just said, Lord, have I missed doing something you've asked us to do? As soon as I said the prayer, he impressed on my heart and mind, he said, you haven't finished the adoption journey.
Wow. So that was January 2012. That's the same time Alina was being told she was being put up for adoption. And she was originally adopted from the Ukraine as an orphan. Had you already known her?
No, no. Didn't know any of that stuff. Didn't know any of that stuff. It was just God was lining up all the steps. And we did not meet her to our wedding anniversary of that same year in May.
So it was five months later after we did all the pre-work.
Okay.
We got an opportunity to meet her and just. As her story developed and as we Came to know her, we knew exactly why God and how God was ordering the steps.
So it's really cool. And she's doing phenomenal.
Well, and so fast forward to 2025, and as much as I appreciated, certainly appreciated that story over the years as you have shared it with me and with others. It hits much closer to home now because I know, because of our friendship, my youngest daughter, Colby, just recently adopted their second child. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah.
So that whole adoption process, as much as I was thrilled for what you guys were doing and obviously, you know, the difference in the impact you've made on her life. And she's getting a PhD. I mean, you've obviously had an impact on her life and provided incredible safe harbor and safe home for her to grow up in. Because, you know, let's face it, there are the stories out there, you know, the horror stories. Of children, and men, I've heard their stories of growing up in an orphanage or just growing up as an orphan and the other side of it.
So, what a tremendous tribute to you and Lisa and embracing her and bringing her into your home and loving her as your own, which I know you've done, knowing your heart. And Lisa, know that you guys have loved her as your own. And now, with Kobe adopting. Yeah. two children and I see her and her husband Andrew embracing Elliot and embracing Maya that very same way, you know, as though they're their own.
Oh, yeah. It's one of those things that, you know, it's like when you have your first child and then you have a second child, you think, well, how can I love the second one as much as I love the first one?
Well, it's exponential. It just continues to grow, as you know, and you've been through it with your children and grandchildren. And same with Alina.
Now, it took a little bit of adjusting on everybody's part because she was 14 when she came to live with us. But she had never grown up with a father. She was a single-parent adoption. Her mother came and brought her over from Ukraine back to Lenore, North Carolina.
Okay.
And so that was the. And Lisa and Alina and everybody will probably tell you that the main main core thing That has hit home for her is having a father figure and a mother figure, which is something she had never experienced. And then having that guidance and encouragement and discipline and just the There is a structure to life, and she's learned all that, and she's done phenomenal. And the other three kids are just absolutely a blessing as well. You know, her oldest, and you know, you've met them all.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that structure you're talking about is. The way the Lord intended, and the way He laid it out, right? Let me just kind of piggyback on that for just a second and ask how. important you feel Because, you know, in today's world, unfortunately, divorce is, the rate of divorce is as high in the church as it is outside of the church, which is somewhat staggering if you think about it.
I heard a pastor recently say it this way: if two spirit-filled, born-again lovers of Jesus Uh, can't work it out. What's wrong with that picture? Yeah, you know, are both. Genuinely born again and spirit-filled, or because if there's only one, then it's understandable how that marriage might end in divorce. But one might think, and I, Roy, I can't help but think if both are truly say, oh, I love Jesus, well, then in my mind, I'm like, well, then he should be able to intervene at some point and reconcile whatever differences are there.
reconcile that. Totally agree, and it's interesting you bring that up. One of the things that, you know, as you know, we've used a counselor. In fact, she was on our podcast at some point in time. Jane Lessard, 40 plus years counseling.
She said, Roy, I have never had a couple that prayed together divorced.
Okay.
You may love the Lord, but if you're not seeking Father, together as a couple. Then you Are you still missing it because then you're depending on yourself or you're depending on the other person to do their part. You've got to be coming to Christ and to the Father through Jesus to have that union together. And you know me, and you say the same thing to your men. I encourage our men to pray with their wives daily.
Well, in fact, to that point, I'll just tag on right there. I saw a recent statistic. When I share this at our man-up conferences, kind of build up to it, and the guys are like, Wow, like, and I share the usual stat about 50% plus divorce, blah, blah, blah. And I say, but men who Who pray with, I go now, you maybe pray for her, and hopefully you do, which is a good start. And maybe you pray for your children, but how important is it to pray with your children and with your wife?
And the statistic, Roy, I found was. Only one out of every 36,000 marriages end in divorce with men who pray with their wives. And I tell the guys, it doesn't have to be some, you know, eloquent 15-minute prayer or something. It could be 30 seconds, like, hey, before I head out the day for work, or before you head out. You know, the door for work.
Man, let me just say a prayer over to you. And see, Lisa, Lisa and I, to just be fully transparent, when you know me, I'm pretty much an open book. But we spent a lot of years not doing that. And about 15 years ago, maybe even 17 years ago, it just dawned on me that that was part of my responsibility, part of my role, but also protection for my children and for my wife in going before the father on their behalf. And what's really cool about Nick is just being able to see the intimacy that develops.
through the conversation with Father. When you're talking to him about your spouse, whom you love very much, and about your children, and about him, and you're able to share at a level that your spouse may not normally hear in normal conversations or the I love you, I love you of the conversations. And the same for her when she's talking to Father on your behalf and for your children's behalf. It's such an amazing intimacy. And you're talking about in those moments of praying together.
Together, yes, yes.
Okay, so not individually, although you maybe do that too, but you're saying, Pray together. I was getting ready to just ask, that was going to be my next question. Because you're saying, Those moments of praying together have raised the level of intimacy between you and your wife, is what I'm hearing you say. Between the two of us and father. Yeah, yeah, and that anchor, right?
That anchor, having him as that anchor. And uh it and so for For the guys out there, you would say what to the guys out there who are not currently praying with their wife? What would you say to them? I would say get off the sidelines and start praying with your wife, for your wife. And also invite her to pray as well.
So like with Lisa and I, we'll alternate days.
So today, you know, like this morning I prayed or yesterday morning I prayed and today she would pray and then tomorrow I'll pray.
So that way it's not one person and the other person not being. Participative in the conversation with Father. And I can't stress enough, and I'm sure over the radio and the YouTube here, that it's probably hopefully symphonic enough that people will recognize the importance of it. It was a game changer for our relationship, I tell you. And interesting, and back to being transparent, we were having a couple, few few tough days a few weeks back.
Who doesn't in marriage? Amen. Amen. Especially after 40 years. Yeah, right.
Yeah, that's why you don't make decisions on emotions or feelings. It's an attitude. It's an attitude decision. And God just put on my heart and said, hey, we had missed praying together for a couple of days. And I said, you know what's missing?
And she said, what? I said, we've not been praying regularly over the last week or two days because of schedules and so forth. And she said, you know, you're right. And I said, that starts back tomorrow. This was like middle of the afternoon.
I said, we start back tomorrow morning. And we did.
So it's just those little things as a follower of Christ and as a husband. Spouse and partner that you have to be willing to recognize and also be the one who leads the charge if it's not being led. I was at a service a couple weeks ago, and the guy was telling the story how him and his wife went to Jamaica for like a little holiday or whatever. And man, he was all jacked up first night, you know. Dinner on the beach, you know, dinner at the oceanside, and she was all dressed to the nines, and he was all excited.
It's gonna be a really nice romantic looks like things are sizing up to me. He said, We sat down at the dinner table, and she said one thing. He goes, She said something I didn't like, and I'm like, and God's like, Give me the keys, like, give me the keys. And he's like, I got this. And he goes, Then I just said something back that she didn't like.
And it was silenced the rest of the entire dinner, silence all the way back, silence in the elevator, silence going to bed. Right? He goes, I got up the next morning like five o'clock or whatever, to have some Jesus time. And Jesus said, He goes, He said to me, Really? Really?
That's how you're going to treat my daughter? And you think now you're going to come and have some Jesus time with me? He goes, Maybe you should reconcile that first. And he goes, It's 5 a.m. I'm thinking, My wife's not a morning person, God.
You want me to wake her up at five o'clock? And reconcile. He goes, so I did. And when I said, Hadi, I'm really sorry for last night. He goes, this he threw the For what?
In there, right? He's like, oh man, you're really going to make this hard, aren't you? Right? So anyway. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com.
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You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Man, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. You got me choking up here, Roy. That's really good stuff.
Let me shift gears just for a moment along the same vein. Because you're talking about, you know, uh her having a uh uh a dad and a mom in her life. Um Role role, not only the role of a husband, which you're alluding to here for our listeners, which has been, which is amazing, the role of a dad, the role of a father in the home, and how the enemy through this whole divorce process has really ripped families apart, right? And really tried, maybe I think you'll agree with me, rip the man out of the picture more than anything, rip the guy out.
So, how important is that from a man's perspective, from your perspective, to be a dad in a child's life? Oh, it's all important, Nick. You know, you've heard my story personally about my dad being a truck driver. He was present, but he wasn't present. You know, every second day about when I would see him.
But there was this. God ordained need in my heart and soul to have that father figure and to be close to him. And I mean, I could go on and on about some of the stories of the things I would do just to get close to him, to be with him. But with our role as fathers and dads, it's so imperative and so important that we're active and that we're involved and engaged. And I'll give you a quick little, for instance, Caleb, who's my oldest son, second in the lineup.
And this will be one example just to demonstrate what we're talking about here. You never know, you know as you're building into them when they're kids that some of it's going to take and some of it may take a little longer to two to take.
Well, Kayla, who's a police officer now down in Georgia, he called me one day. He said, Dad, he said, I had the craziest thing happen this weekend. He said, I had two different women I had to arrest from very prominent families for choplifting. He said, You know what I know what came to my mind? Is when I was playing, I had gone to the.
concession stand at one of the rec leagues when I was a kid and I came back and they gave me too much change and I was telling you how I made money 'cause they gave me more money than I was supposed to. Have gotten back.
So I rolled up on him really quick and I said, You go return that and tell them that they've given you too much money. I said, Nobody likes a liar and a thief. And he said, You know, That ingrained in my heart. And the same holds true for our walk with God. They see it demonstrated.
You have a chance to coach the children through it. And these tablets and telephones are probably one of the worst things that we've done to our children. All these screens, all these screen time. And it's just, and you know, everybody wants to rationalize: well, they enjoy the games, they enjoy this, they enjoy that. There's nothing that they will enjoy more than time with father, with their father, quality time with their dad, quality time, and their mom.
And then what and the mom, and then what you model, right? Yeah, what you model, yeah. What you model as a dad. Yeah, and that's one of the things, you know, Nick, you and I have talked about this in the past. Last Father's Day, not this Father's Day in 2025, but in 2024, my wife prompted my children to write a letter what their father's legacy was.
And uh Of all the things She hardly even talked about all the things I've gotten in my lifetime. that Probably means the very most because I know when I'm gone, this is who they will remember their father as, and this is what they've been entrusted with in terms of their traits. And you know, the reason that was so important is you and I've talked about having had that stroke a couple years ago, which I went through. You know, you had mentioned that pre-show. God has just been so amazing to us to allow us to get through that with limited um handicap or limited issues if you will over the time period and just uh But that letter, those letters from me to those four kids, Just took myself.
Priceless, right? It is.
So and to ask you a question. Vital. It's vitally important that that's a good idea. And one of my children, speaking of Father's Day, you brought this to memory when you mentioned that. And this is priceless, right?
Just like you're alluding to, it's priceless. I love you so much, Papa. You've taught me about adventure. You've taught me not to take life too seriously, but to be okay when things are different than you thought. You've loved me.
Help me when I've cried. Listen to me time and time again, right? And all of our memories and trips and conversations and experience are imprinted on my heart. And I wouldn't be who I am without you. Thank you for loving me the best of your ability.
Amen. So you get something like that from one of your children or someone, and it's priceless. It is.
It is.
And so for the guys out there, you know, and, you know, you're struggling to be that dad. I mean, we just challenge them, right, to just man up. Yeah, man up. That's pop and man up. And it's okay to make mistakes and admit it.
And admit it. And admit it. And admit it. And that's the other thing, that children need to learn that it's okay to fail. or to make a mistake, but the important part is that you're repentive and that you show that sorrow to the ones that you've offended as well as to God.
And you just made reference of it just. Real quick before we because I want to talk about what you're doing with your men's ministry before we run out of time. You know, overcoming the health challenges that you've had more recently. Just touch on how God and His grace has really sustained you through some of those health challenges. Yeah, thanks.
Well, In July, in fact, we just passed the two-year anniversary, it was July 23rd of 2023. I was sitting in church of all places, and um. I couldn't sis all of a sudden I couldn't see the pastor very well. And I realized something was wrong, so I closed my journal, and then I realized something really was out of whack because my right arm was like it didn't belong to me. And then something just felt strange.
So I reached down my left arm to get my glasses and phone. And when I bent over, I blacked out. And so I had a stroke, and luckily, there was. We have 400 and some warriors sitting there that morning that went to prayer immediately. And then, of course, then the pastor picked back up and said, hey, let's not stay distracted and let everybody work with Roy.
And so I had some hiccups along the way and some memories. components that were a little bit off off center, still got a little bit of the memory stuff that still takes time to pull back in. And there were some speech issues and it was more of a lag, if you will. In talking for the first year, I'd be talking, I'd just pause, you know, and then I'd come back to what I was saying. But God has been so good.
My wife was phenomenal, Lisa, during the journey. She didn't freak out. She didn't panic. She was scared, but she was rock solid. And my family, Joshua, my youngest son, who's single, had graduated, just graduated, and actually asked his new boss in the engineering firm out of Raleigh, could he come live with his mom and dad for a while or work remotely because he wasn't sure how much need I was or assistance I was going to have to have.
Gotcha.
So, yeah.
So, God's been faithful to help you overcome those health challenges, which we can all have. And we've been involved, you and I, over the years, lots of different men's ministry as well.
Some of the things we're talking about today, some of the different things. I've been up to your camps, you've been over to Man Camp, and some of the different things that we've done together. Take a minute or two and just talk about Talking. Talk about what you're doing there. Sure.
How people can find out more about you. Yeah, yeah.
The website's www.tawtawcmm.com stands for Talking, Walking Christian Men's Ministry. Hearts, you know, as you know, God got a hold of my heart in 2005 and said, What have you done for the kingdom? And there was really nothing I could put my hands on. 2007, I started in men's ministry after two years of mentorship under a mentor. And ever since then, God's just said, Man, got to get men off the sideline, Roy.
Just kept telling me, Roy, move men towards me, move men towards me, because men are notorious. For not opening it up, not being transparent, not understanding their relationship with Father, as you know very well, because he teaches us about that quite regularly. And so, what Talkum is doing now, I was men's pastor at a church for the last five years, six years rather, and just stepped down out of that role. And I do have a marketplace job, which the pastor's job was a volunteer role for men here in Kernersville. But what God has just impressed on my heart is there's so many small to mid-sized and some even large churches that don't have an active men's fellowship.
So, we're moving towards starting to open those doors for some of these smaller churches, doing some workshops, similar to what you do with Man Up, like a day of man up, but it's going to be more geared around what does it look like, what do small groups look like, how do we get the thing, the ball moving forward in the actual church.
So, we're going to just try to help the church as you're strengthening. The church at large. The church at large. And as you're strengthening the men, we're strengthening the church by strengthening the men. That's my heart.
And I really feel like that's where we need to continue heading. And it's about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. We had a men's meeting at my marketplace job today at lunch. And one of the questions I asked him, I said, as we were closing this thing out, When's the last time you had lunch or dinner or breakfast with somebody that doesn't look like you? Right, right.
Yeah. Fair question. I'm guessing what kind of response you get. Oh, you don't have to have it. Yeah, there was a couple black guys that were in the audience.
Yeah. They said, great question. And they were challenged by it too. Sure. And I see the most segregated day we deal with on Sundays of the week.
Black, brown, white. I mean, it doesn't matter. Everybody's in their own silos for the most part. I mean, red and yellow, black and white. We're all one.
You created them all in a site, right? I mean, last time I checked, right? And we all bleed the same. Yeah. Same.
You know, we go to the color of your skin. Yeah. We all bleed the same, don't we? Yeah, we do. Man, well, you've, you've, you've, we, we, we have covered a lot of ground here in a short period of time of time.
We have. And hopefully some of the things you've said today or shared today, you know, when it comes to fatherhood and manhood and being a husband has ministered to someone in the audience today.
Well, I'd like to make a quick plug, if I could, for The man up camp. Nikita and I first met 11, oh gosh, it's been about 14 years ago now, I guess, 15 years ago. And I attended a camp that he was hosting at that particular time, which was an amazing journey, as you know. And then a few years back, Nikita and Lex started the man camp. And Nikita had been encouraging me to come when the time was right.
So this past fall, I was able to make that journey and got a chance to spend time with Robbie, which was absolutely great as well. But it's funny as a mature Christian, but not certainly one that's not without failure or fault. I was sitting there as these men were going through their journey and I'm thinking, you know, I'm okay, Lord. There's nothing really, nothing I need to fix at the moment. And so, yeah, exactly.
And so then all of a sudden, and I came to you, it was like, God said, no, there's two things you haven't dealt with. And I came before you guys and she said, brought revelation to you. It is so setting. I just want to encourage you, man. No matter where you're at in your spiritual journey, if you're long distance and you've been in there a while and you feel like you're on target.
You're not as on target as you think you are. And if you're early in the walk, it's never too early to start this journey. No matter how healthy or good you think you might consider yourself to be, we can always be better, can't we? Amen. Amen.
So.
Well, I appreciate you. I love you. One more time, your website where they can find out more about you. Yeah, it's www.tawcmm.com. And it's Talking, Walking, Christian Men's Ministry.
So I'd love to have you join us. Yeah, Roy Jones, I want to encourage you to check out that website. He does his own camps and retreats up in the mountains in usually January, right? Yeah, yeah.
And January, February 8th timeframe. And then you've done massive major conferences over the years as well that I've been blessed to be a part of, whether speaking or MCing. Got another one coming up in February 28th. February 28th.
So we'll have to get Roy back and get more information on that, okay? And thank you for tuning in again each and every week. You're so faithful. Keep spreading the word on Truth Network and the Man of Show. And Q ⁇ A with Koloff.
Until next time, have a God-filled, God-blessed day. Amen. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God. and your faithful prayers support and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions.
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